WASHINGTON, D.C. — In a landmark announcement that could reshape America's energy future, U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright and NVIDIA Vice President Ian Buck declared Thursday that artificial intelligence will help build the energy it needs, unveiling the Genesis Mission as a cornerstone of U.S. leadership.

Speaking at the SCSP AI+ Expo, the two leaders detailed a massive expansion of AI supercomputing for scientific discovery, with NVIDIA building two of the world's largest AI supercomputers at Argonne National Laboratory. The first, Equinox, is already being deployed with 10,000 NVIDIA Grace Blackwell GPUs. The second, Solstice, will feature 100,000 next-generation NVIDIA Vera Rubin GPUs.

“Energy is life,” Wright said. “The more energy you have, the more affordable energy you have, the more opportunities you have in your society.”

Buck put the scale of Solstice into perspective: “To put that 100,000 in perspective on the next-generation GPU, which is dedicated to science, it’s 5,000 exaflops. That’s a big number that actually is five times larger than the entire TOP500 supercomputer list combined.”

Background: The Genesis Mission and DOE Partnership

The Genesis Mission is the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) flagship initiative to apply AI to accelerate scientific discovery. NVIDIA is a key partner, building on two decades of collaboration with DOE national labs. “NVIDIA is 100% committed and invested in Genesis,” Buck said. “I’ve never seen more excitement across the lab and industry.”

The DOE contributes 17 national labs, expert scientists, national-scale problems, and vast datasets. NVIDIA brings the full computing stack—not just chips but algorithms, methods, and two decades of partnership. “We’re creating all the same technology, all the same hardware, all the same software building blocks used by all the major AI labs around the world for all of world science to go get access to,” Buck added.

Real-World Impact: AI for Fusion and Beyond

Buck described an open-source NVIDIA AI model trained on 1.5 million physics papers, then fine-tuned on 100,000 papers specifically about fusion energy. The result: a specialized AI agent that DOE researchers can use to accelerate breakthroughs in fusion and other critical energy technologies.

The partnership also includes other NVIDIA executives presenting at the conference: Chris Malachowsky (AI+ Careers Workforce Task Force), Rev Lebaredian (physical AI and simulation), Dion Harris (AI-accelerated science and AI infrastructure for Africa), and John Josephakis (U.S. quantum leadership).

What This Means: American Leadership Hinges on Energy and AI

Wright and Buck argued that American leadership in AI runs through American leadership in energy—and vice versa. Over the past 20 years, energy demands have surged, and the new supercomputers represent a strategic bet on domestic energy abundance to fuel AI expansion.

“The more energy you have, the more affordable energy you have, the more opportunities you have in your society,” Wright reiterated, tying the Genesis Mission directly to national competitiveness.

With Equinox operational now and Solstice on the horizon, the U.S. is positioning itself to outpace global rivals in both AI and energy innovation. The message was clear: the future of American prosperity depends on rapidly building the energy infrastructure to power the AI revolution—and AI itself will help build that energy.

— Reporting contributed by SCSP AI+ Expo coverage.